Not so fast.....

Word has just been received that we may go tonight. One of the Chilean bases has lost power and we may have to go on a rescue mission. More as details become available

Time to go

It is Thursday June the 25th and I am prepping to move to the LM Gould for the trip home.

I leave here with mixed emotions for the new friends I have made but also with great anticipation to again be with my beautiful wife.

So so long Palmer Station, It's been a great trip.

Mid Winter Celebration

One of the big events for winter over crews in Antarctica is the celebration of Mid Winter. All the stations send greetings to each othe and some are very creative. The ones that come from the other countries are cool. I'll be posting them on the Picasaweb site when I get the files converted.

Palmer Station was no different and marked the occasion 2 days early, due to the LM Gould's scheduled arrival. We roasted a pig and had a fairly formal dinner, well as formal as you can be in Antarctica. Check out the rig used to turn the pig. It became known as "Craig Riggin' ". But It worked and we had a great dinner.

Happy Father's Day

I feel very, very fortunate to still have my Pop. A great man, a great Dad, a great Grandpa, and a great Greatgrandpa. Oh, and Mom, he's probably a great Husband!

Love you, POP

R.I.P. Gran

I just received word of the passing of my children's grandmother on their mothers side. She fought a long battle with cancer but beat it for many years with out heavy drugs. Condolences to all.

Things of haircuts and Polar plunges...

Don't worry, no haircut for me. Just some wild color. One of the guys on station was helping raise some money for AIDS relief in Africa. He raffled off tickets to cut volunteers hair. We had 4 victims: Myself, the cook, the Doc and our Logistics person (2 girls, 2 guys). Of course the girls ended up bald after a few different styles were tried, the cook looked like Fred Flinstone and I had some interesting color happening. A few shot are here and there are more on the Picasaweb site. A fun evening was had and several hundred dollars raised (remember there arn't many of us here)






One of the long lasting traditions here is the Palmer Plunge. When the boat heads back to Chile, we send off the North bound folks by jumping off the pier into the 28 degree water. This video sais it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soEdFkG7x8M. There should be a R rating on some of the clip. This was the first time for me and most likely the last.


The last item today was most likely my last boating trip on the Zodiak. The weather was great for once and we spent about 2 hours out traveling to near by islands. We only have about 5 hours of daylight so time is limited. We saw lots of furseals and elephant seals as well as giant pectrols.



Lots more photos coming up on the Picasaweb site